Animal
by Trumpeteer34
Summary: After a particularly rough transformation, Bruce Banner reflects on his situation and slowly sinks lower and lower into despair. Pre-Avengers.


I do not own any of the characters present. They belong to Marvel. This was written purely for fun. Post-The Incredible Hulk. Pre-Avengers.

**Edit: Sorry for not posting this sooner. WARNING: Animal Cruelty triggers. Read at your own discretion. I apologize for any ill feelings this has provoked.**

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_Booming gunfire. Glass shattering, shards falling to the dusty ground. Screaming people. Crying children. An earth-quaking roar. Running. Fighting. Smashing. Fleeing. Killing. __**Run! Get away! RUN!**_

_Just leave me alone! _

_ Bullets hitting his skin, but never strong enough to pierce through. Bones crunching in his hands. People snapping in his grip. Explosions. Flames licking at his calves. Never feeling pain; just the rage. Always just the rage. _

A foreign touch brushed up against his leg.

Bruce Banner was startled awake, feeling nothing but panic and the strangled yelp clawing its way up his throat for release. He instantly threw his dirty hands over his mouth to keep the sound muffled. Green streaked irises shot around, trying to find who touched him, who was coming to lock him away, to experiment on him.

His eyes came to a rest upon a stray cat, sitting and watching him.

The pair of ragged creatures stared at each other for a lingering moment before the man let out a shaky, and rather forced, chuckle. He curled into a shivering ball and focused on calming his heartbeat and slowing his rapid breathing. He was safe for now…he was still in the abandoned doorway he had fallen asleep against, toward the opening of an alley. It was still dark; only a few torches were burning on the nearby street, shedding enough light to illuminate the cat and some of his surroundings. It was late enough that everyone with any shred of sense had long-since gone to sleep, but too early in the morning for people to be up and about. It was never really quite in these third-world country cities, but the noise now was a muted hush. No sounds of weapons being loaded. No sounds of death and destruction.

Just a slumbering city. Safe for now.

_Safe for now…_

It took a few minutes, but when the roaring in his head softened into an occasional growl, Bruce uncurled his body just enough to look at the cat again and hold out a shaky hand.

As the cat began to rub its face against his trembling fingers, Bruce's thoughts returned to his dream, which were really just the memories from four days ago. Even as he was thinking about it, he started to shake again. He had woken up in a neighboring country with blood on his hands, splattered across his bare chest and face. The horror washed over him again and he felt waves of nausea roll over him again. His eyes slipped shut and he bowed his head, letting the terror blanket over him.

That last transformation had been terrible. General Ross had come out of nowhere, confronting him with his usual squadron of militants and oversized weapons. Good god, _why_ hadn't the general lured him away from the civilians before engaging? The attack had been in broad daylight, right in the middle of a city street…a _marketplace_, for Christ's sake! So many people…so much damage…so much _blood_—

He hadn't realized his shaking had gotten worse until the cat grew irritated and hissed. A paw swung forward at his quaking hand, claws digging deep into the skin on his fingers. Bruce blinked from his trance to watch the cat dash away from him after throwing a low growl over its furry shoulder. His brown eyes traveled to his knuckles as his blood slowly began to run down his fingers. He should have felt pain, but he couldn't really feel anything aside from a numbness he was beginning to grow accustomed to.

An inaudible exhale escaped from the man and he tore a strip of fabric from the oversized shirt he was wearing. As he was carefully wrapping his bleeding fingers, his eyes lifted to find the irritable feline sitting at the opening of the alley, casually licking its paw.

While he was tying off the makeshift bandage, a low yowling noise started to sound. The man's eyes fell upon the cat again, still at the opening of the alley. The feline was hunched over, hacking as if it had something stuck in its throat.

Its yowling grew louder and more pain-filled for a moment before it collapsed to the littered road. Its limbs quaked, and then fell still.

The silence was nearly deafening as Bruce continued to stare at the limp form of the feline. His eyes sluggishly fell to the bandage on his hand, to the small stains of his blood slowly bleeding through the fabric, and then back to the cat.

The hush was broken by a low chuckle. Brown eyes remained locked on the lifeless animal, his shoulders beginning to shake as laughter racked his body. The soft chuckle rapidly transformed into hysterical, delirious laughter, ringing through the night air. His trembling body fell against the doorframe, the only thing keeping him upright as the jagged cascade of laughter burst from his body.

The unkempt physicist slowly curled into himself, running his trembling hands through his hair until he was cradling his head in his arms. His shoulders continued to shake as the laughter melted away into defeated and quiet sobbing. Quaking fingers grabbed handfuls of his greying hair.

His breathing hitched when he felt the Other Guy stir in his head, his grief suddenly washed away by panic. He gripped the sides of his head and drew a few deep, shuddering breaths in and exhaled shakily. Tears continued to sneak past his tightly shut eyelids and streaked down his cheeks, but the dull roars were becoming faint growls again. He didn't even realize that his body was rocking back and forth in what was meant to be a calming movement.

After a few more minutes of just breathing, trying to calm himself and keep the Other Guy at bay, he lifted his tear-soaked face to the dead feline across the way. Dead, simply from licking his blood from its claws. His toxic blood. His irradiated poisoned blood.

A wave of disgust washed over him. He felt like an animal. He didn't even need to be transformed to kill things. Everything he touched, he destroyed. His monster didn't even need to be present; it made no difference.

There was only one thing that he knew he couldn't destroy, couldn't kill, and that was his monster. He had tried just about everything to get rid of the giant green beast of mindless rage, and that last option was looking more and more appealing by the day.

The shiver that normally ran through him when his thoughts turned to this was absent. That in and of itself should have chilled him, but the idea was strangely calming. At least then, he wouldn't put anyone else in danger ever again. It would be for the best… There was no point in continuing on like this, living life between transformations, running from the destruction, unable to stick around long enough to see how poorly the city had endured his monster's raging tantrum. He was a cowardly wretch, terrified of the monster he had become, terrified of what he was capable of while in a rage, while threatened, even while _frightened. _He disgusted himself as much as he feared himself. Why go on like this…?

He found himself staring at the feline's corpse with distantly apathetic eyes for a moment longer before he pushed himself up unsteadily onto his feet. He swayed briefly and grabbed one of the small metal trashcans standing next to the doorframe he had been sleeping in. He knew that one dead cat wouldn't put General Ross back on his trail, but he couldn't risk some of the homeless people he'd seen wandering the streets eating the deceased creature. A gamma poisoned cat wouldn't garner attention, but a human being with gamma poisoning certainly would.

Bruce emptied the trash into one of the others and added some old newspapers before setting the can in the center of the small area. He lethargically shuffled out of the alley, not even pausing to look at the deceased animal as he passed by, and grabbed one of the many torches burning along the street. On his way back into the alley, he reached down and picked up the cat with his free hand.

The torch was added to the newspapers, and before long, a good sized fire was burning within the trashcan. He tossed the dead cat into the blaze, watching the bits of burning newspaper fly into the air, red and bright before dying out and floating off. His face held very little emotion as his eyes turned downward to watch the flames. The smell of burning fur emanated through the air.

The physicist slipped the makeshift bandage from his hand and tossed it, too, into the fire. He glanced down at where the feline had scratched him and wanted to frown. His fingers, still slightly tinted green, were almost completely healed. A small tremor ran through his hand before he closed it into a fist. Maybe if the damage was sudden enough, and in a controlled environment, he could actually do himself some real harm before the Other Guy felt obligated to heal his puny human shell.

He remained like that for a few lingering minutes before he allowed his hand to fall to his side. After taking one last look at the fire, Bruce turned and stalked out into the empty streets. He had no idea where he was, but it never really mattered during the first few days after an incident. He just needed to keep moving.

Just get away, away from where he couldn't hurt anyone or anything else. Keep moving. Must keep moving…

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A/N: I've been thinking about Bruce Banner's toxic blood for a few days now, and this popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone until I sat down to write it. I also wanted to write something about Bruce getting low. I'd say this takes place a few weeks before that certain event.

I'm still working on the final chapter to "Duplicity." I haven't abandoned it; believe me, I want to finish it.

Thank you so much for reading! Feedback is always welcome!


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